Sing to me, muse
by prouvairing
Summary: ... she walked closer, stepping over dead, yellow grass and patches of burned soil, and she saw the figure tumbling in the air. "Are those winged shoes?" Katara couldn't help but exclaim.


**Characters**: Aang, Katara  
><strong>Pairings:<strong> Kataang  
><strong>Rating:<strong> K  
><strong>Genre:<strong> General, Fantasy, Fluff

**A/N:** It's supposed to be the first of a series of oneshots that see the ATLA characters as demigods. Choice of title is vague as a consequence (and yet I love it, it's a classical start to epic poems: invoking the Muse to speak through you! Yes, I overthink these things.) However I don't trust my perseverance, so updates to this will almost surely far in-between. Still. Details on the crossing-over choices at the bottom! Also: this is obviously for brother.

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><p><em>"'…she pestered Chiron so much he finally told her he already knew her fate. He'd had a prophecy from the Oracle. He wouldn't tell her the whole thing, but he said Annabeth wasn't destined to go on a quest yet. She had to wait until...somebody special came to the camp.'<em>

_'Annabeth wants to think every new camper who comes through here is the omen she's been waiting for.'"_  
>(The Lightning Thief)<em><br>_

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><p>The wind blew aimlessly, sending long locks of dark hair in her face, as Katara stomped along the Via Praetoria, down the gentle slope of Temple Hill.<p>

She walked with the martial stride acquired in years of marching along with the Legion, passing the charred plains of the Fields of Mars, where she had lead more than an attack and more than a defense in too many a war game to count.

She passed various legionaries, who were making their merry way to New Rome, and each of them regarded her with a curious look, bemused at the thunderous expression upon her face.

It was not usual, that she came back from her visits to the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus with such an expression. Her meetings with the old augur, Aunt Wu, would leave her quite satisfied, more often than not.

But this time, it had been different. This time, she hadn't needed riddles and advice on what she should eat for breakfast. This time, the fluffy entrails of stuffed animals hadn't seemed to hold any answers for her.

_I wouln't hold my breath, Katara,_ Sokka had told her, just a few days ago. _You can't expect _every_ person to cross the Little Tiber to be _him!

Katara frowned. She most definitely _didn't_ think every person crossing the river to be her foreseen hero, the one that would bring with him her quest, so that she would finally leave Camp Jupiter and dive into the outside world.

But this time, this time… She had had a feeling. What with the way he walked, talked, fought differently from anyone she had ever met. What with the way he had smiled goofily when the Fifth Cohort had decided to take him into their ranks, the way he had broken all of their unwritten rules in the last war games.

Katara huffed, coming to a stop. She drew a deep breath, trying to calm her nerves. She had not survived seven years in the Legion without learning self-control – as hard as it had been in the beginning. Sometimes, especially in the heat of the games, she still lost control and lashed out, letting her worst feelings have the better of her. But she had vowed not to let that happen – children of Neptune weren't well-liked to begin with. She had been lucky enough to be accepted in the Second Cohort, along with Sokka, and even that had been all thanks to her Gran Gran's reference letter.

Her rise in the Camp's regards, and her election as Centurion for two consecutive years, however, had been all her own doing. A slow smile stretched on her lips, and the frustration ebbed away just as slowly. She was Katara, daughter of Neptune, Senator and Centurion of the Second Cohort, and this was no more than a delay. She could handle it, no problem.

A shriek rose from the fields, then, making her hand fly to her dagger. Then the shriek became laughter and Katara raised an eyebrow, wondering who in the world would be laughing, out in the Fields of Mars.

She got her answer as she walked closer, stepping over dead, yellow grass and patches of burned soil, and she saw the figure tumbling in the air.

Speak of the devil. It was none other than that weird son of Mercury, object of her latest brooding.

"Are those winged shoes?" Katara couldn't help but exclaim. Aang, the son of Mercury in question, doubled over in the air, startled by her voice. She couldn't help but chuckle at the sight.

"Oh! H-hi, Katara!"

"Hi, Aang." She grinned. Ok, maybe he was cute. So what? That didn't mean that he was her awaited omen. "Where did you get those?"

Aang hovered in the air, the wind mussing up his dark air and amusement sparkling in his grey eyes – strange enough; was he a descendant of Minerva as well?

His cheeks were also bright red, but that could have been the wind.

"It's a gift from my father," he said with a grin, and pointed up at the sky. "Herm– Mercury!"

Katara raised an eyebrow. "Herr Mercury?"

Aang's cheeks flared up even brighter. "Uh, yeah! I mean… _ja!"_

Katara frowned, but decided to let it slide. Yes, he was a little goofy.

_But also kinda sweet._

"That's cool," she said, with a slightly sad smile, and added, before she had time to filter her thoughts, "I wish my dad had given me a gift."

Aang landed softly on the Fields' scorched ground, and smiled gently. "Not around much?" Katara grimaced in response. He knew, obviously. They all did – and of course they all understood. It was easy to say, to declare you got that gods had no time to take care of lowly mortal lives. It was easy to say, but harder to believe.

"He's around more than most, actually," she added, feeling, despite everything, the need to defend Neptune. It was a reflex by now: however disliked he was among the Romans, everybody knew, after so many years, not to speak ill of the sea god in Katara's presence. "I've actually met him… which is more than a lot of people can say. And he gave Sokka his sword." She grimaced. "I guess you can only give out so many mystical artifacts. So I got nothing."

Aang's eyes widened. "But you did get something!" he said earnestly. He waved his arms, as if it were crucial that she see his point. "You got the awesome water powers! I mean, _that_ is cool. Cooler than flying– …well, almost. But still! Remember how you made the pipes explode in the last war games? Drenched everybody! It was _amazing!"_

Katara felt the heat rise relentlessly from her cheeks, and it was absurd that she would be so stupidly pleased for one legionary from _the Fifth Cohort_ to praise her so enthusiastically. But Aang was standing in front of her, and he was made of sparkling grey eyes, red cheeks, goofy smiles and wind-blown black hair… and also, she noticed, the wings at his feet had started to flutter in his excitement, and he now fluctuated a couple inches from the ground.

No. She shouldn't have felt so warm and happy.

But, mighty Neptune, she did.

"How do you feel about quests?" she asked abruptly, incapable of holding back any longer. Aang blinked a couple times, taken aback, then rubbed the back of his neck.

"'Dunno… Well," he seemed to think his answer thoroughly, as his shoes lowered him back to the ground. "I think that people overestimate them."

"Overestimate them?"

"Yeah, you see… fighting monsters isn't really glamorous. " He shrugged, and Katara remembered him as he had first crossed the river: battered and torn, his shirt covered in burn marks (basilisks, it seemed) and a haunted look in his eyes. Then, a small smile lit up his face, and she thought of nothing else. "Well, unless you're with friends. In which case, it can be lots of fun!"

Katara had never heard fighting monsters defined as 'fun' before, but she laughed all the same. "I guess that's why you always need two other people, on quests, right?"

Aang beamed and showcased his approval getting airborne again. Katara laughed, watching his somersault in the air a couple times.

So, maybe he wasn't her prophecy hero after all. Somehow, she couldn't harness the disappointment necessary.

"Hey!" Aang called, flashing her a mischievous grin. "Want to give it a try?"

Flying was a big no-no, horrible, very-bad idea for a daughter of Neptune. She shouldn't have even considered it.

Katara beamed. "Sure."

Oh well. Jupiter surely was not going to zap at her in the middle of the Fields of Mars, just for hovering a few feet in the air, was he?

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><p><strong>AN cont'd:** This one was easy to chose; Sokka and Katara _obviously_ had to be children of Poseidon… or Neptune. Why I chose that they'd be Roman demigods I'm still not sure. I liked the idea that Aang would be the _graecus_ coming to Rome. Kind of like in the Souther Water Tribe, where nobody has seen an Airbender in a hundred years, nobody at Camp Jupiter can remember even the existance of Greek demigods. And Aang could have just as easily been a son of Zeus, but really… Mischievous god of roads and travelers, with winged, flying shoes? Much more fitting - and more fun! - in my opinion. Also, the idea of Aang as a son of Hermes came to Jenna first, so I probably should credit her. Hi brother!


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